


Embroidery

by TheVeryLastValkyrie



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4440599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVeryLastValkyrie/pseuds/TheVeryLastValkyrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She'd always stitched him up, set him to rights. A few stolen moments in the forest where moonlight and memory may be the undoing of Robin, who ought to take more care, and Marian, who ought to take more chances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Embroidery

**Author's Note:**

> Imported from my FanFiction account.

This night, when she stitches him up – Djaq is nowhere to be found, and Marian is grateful for the clever almond-shaped eyes that see but never judge – she can't help running her fingers over that other scar, the scar that will always scare her a little.

“I wish you could heal that one as easily.”

She presses her fingertips to raised, rucked flesh, feels blood pulsing beneath, pain echoing down to the marrow of his bones. “You could’ve died.”

“You could’ve married Gisborne. A far worse fate than death, if you ask me.”

“Grow up.” Her violet-blue eyes are clear, but he catches the ripples on the surface as she traces the mark of her almost husband’s blade. “He should die for this.”

“Even though he has _qualities_?”

A look from her quells the teasing, although by this time and at this time of night, he’s halfway to being serious: a dangerous game to be playing with his shirt off, with the curve of her cheek so close as she bends her head.

“This is the reason you returned.” Marian speaks quietly, like a child, and angrily, like a mother. “All the trouble you’ve caused him is his own fault.”

“Do not let the Sheriff hear you say that. We wouldn’t want to dearest Gisborne to hang.”

“You would.” Tying off with dexterity but no real skill – she does so loathe embroidery – she stands, another slender shadow in the shadow of the slender trees. Willow, thinks Robin, and then the shadow makes a soft sound of exasperation, gesturing at him to get dressed and on his feet. “You should’ve waited for Djaq. She could’ve given you something for the pain.”

“And miss your bedside manner? Never!”

Though he walks a step away, the larger, longer fingers weave easily between hers, and though she behaves as if she hasn’t noticed, the pressure of her palm is a kiss of sorts.

As operations of a medical nature must be conducted out of sight and in the moonlight for reasons known best to the fabled Robin Hood, they’re the last to turn in. Interestingly enough, almost all of the available space padded with cloaks, down, saddle blankets and sacks is carpeted with snoring outlaws. Much is the least convincing, but he nevertheless snorts and snortles fit to wake the dead, his face to the fire and his back to everything else.

Robin smirks, stretches, winces as his stitches pull. “Looks like you’re with me, my lady.”

John drives the point home by rolling over and spreading his arms and legs like a great leather-clad bird, wings unfurled. The movement is soon mimicked in all other quarters, accompanied by a cacophony of false mutters and a genuine belch.

Marian folds her arms for the benefit of anyone with a cracked eyelid. “This is not right,” she informs them. “Or subtle.”

And they’re all well aware, from shufflings and murmurs and half-stifled laughter – and from instinct as much as anything – that her small snug of blankets sleeps two most nights. Their betrothal was never really broken off, which is how she justifies it, and the forest is cold at night. Will’s hand creeps across the carpet of leaves sometimes, and sometimes someone takes it, and perhaps that’s why someone made herself scarce when someone else had a wound that needed tending. So it ever was between them: he’d always gone to her window, crosspatch-y after a richly deserved beating for his father, stinging after he’d lost a fight and found a patch of nettles. She’d always stitched him up, set him to rights – only the brutal slap which puffed his cheek and turned it purple for a day and a half did she refuse to tend.

That slap was telling her he was going for a crusader, and not asking her, and having to ask her why she wouldn’t look at him.

When they sleep, she lays her hand on the place where this newest scar is forming, feeling warmth as it knits together but, thank God, is too cool to the touch to bring on a fever.

“How much?” He asks just as she’s drifting off. Her head is pillowed on his arm, but it’ll end up under his chin, and he’ll kiss the crown of her head, and she’ll pretend she dreamt it. They know, they both do, that they’re courting disaster. They know, they both do, quite how close they are to being lovers. “How much do you hate embroidery?”

“Less than I hate the Sheriff and Prince John, more than I hate _Érec et Énide_.”

“Can you sew words?”

“A child can sew words.”

“Very well. I want you to sew ‘Property of Lady Marian’ into whatever body part someone tries to cut off next.”

He wouldn’t be able to say it if he was looking at her. She can tell. Instead of saying something witty back, something which would break the fizzing loveliness of the moment, she presses her lips to his scruffy chin. He tenses, her scent in his nose, a reminder that there are no walls left between them, stone or otherwise.

Best to avoid moonlight from now on.

“A label,” she says. “How romantic. Perhaps I should add a direction in case I ever lose you.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

It doesn’t take long for her to fall asleep, nor for him to kiss the crown of her head, as he does every night. Robin follows soon after, not at all surprised by the lack of pain in his side. It’s clement for the time of year, and the fallen leaves whisper, and the light breeze sounds suspiciously like several people trying not to laugh.


End file.
